yesterday i was frisby golfing at our local park thing and there is a nice sized creek running through it. ive caught a few bass in it before and i was getting bored of the frisbys so i went home real quick and got my lightest spinning reel settup and just a few lures (the fish there dont get to big so thats why i got a light setup). i was fishing a while and didnt catch anything and then i noticed about 20 or so little bass about the size of my palm swimming around not 3 ft into the water. so i put my smalles lure on (a real little jig) and they werent hitting it and it was going right through them and there were tons of them. so i went to the gas station about 3 blocks away and got some nightcrawlers. i cut them up into little pieces abotu a cm long. i put them on a real tiny hook with a splitshot right above the worm and then a little bobber about a ft up. well i was pulling them out like crazy. i would throw them back but there were tons of fish out there and i caught one almost every cast for about 2 hours. it was awesome! and there were more of them about 15 ft out under some trees that i couldnt see that i was catching too.

anyways my question is where can i find nightcrawlers living around my house to dig up so i dont always have to go and buy them. i live on about an acre sized lot with a windbreak of evergreen trees going all the way around. across the road from my house is this wooded area that is about 40 yds thick and about a mile long. if anyone has any advice about where exactly i can find nightcrawlers living in this area i would love to know.

thanks

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The softer loamy soil the better moist not wet. I don't know about in your area but in the places that I have lived you can pile leaves and grass clippings up and keep them moist and it will attract worms. It seems like worms collected from under pinestraw will catch fish when others won't. Do not use fertilizer in the spot. Sometimes you can take a wooden stake and drive it in the ground 20 or so inches and rub a board back and forth across the top. The vibration will bring the worms to the surface, it's called fiddling. Shakeing small trees sometimes will work if they have good roots. This isn't always good for the trees. The best place I have have found have been around barns. You can also get an old ice chest fill it with worm mix or dirt, peatmoss and old leaves or hay in layers and toss the worms you find or buy in it. Cover with like burlap and keep it moist and add corn meal, coffee grounds for them to eat no salt or grease. Night Crawlers can probably be found useing a flashlight a night on top of the ground in colder climates.

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As a kid I had a nightcraler business. The way we gathered them was: after a rain and after it gets good and dark take a flashlight and go pick the off the ground. Now you needed to be quick and have a good back, Most would be partially in a hole and if you was quick enough you could get them before they went completly into the hole. We even had old refridgerators sunk in the back yard to store them. It was a business that was nearly all profit, most people even brought their own containers. It also meant we could stay up late at night as kids..oh goody LMAO

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catch, photo, release maybe? anyways...i like to start a small compost pile in my back yard near a tree. i have plenty of old palm froms and leaves, grasss, dog finnle, and i throw out some table scraps. then, give it about a week, and go out at night, or dig them up. using the stike trick works...it also brings snakes out which is really cool to watch. we use nightcrawlers for crappie, and having a good supply in the backyard is good for the wallet.

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I would always go out at night after a good rain and find them all over the place. Had a deep kiddie pool filled with dirt, coffee and some worm food to help them grow and multiply. Never had to buy worms again, but it is just as easy to get them at night for the next time you want to go out. Then you wont have to buy stuff to keep them in either.

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Like others have mentioned catching them out of yards after a rain is a good way to catch them. The hardest part is trying to figure out which yard these bugs are in. After a good rain either walk or ride a bike through town looking for the nightcrawlers in the street gutter, or crawling across the sidewalk. Once you find some, go ask the property owner if you can hunt nightcrawlers next time it rains.

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When I was a young'un, my dad and I would go out and gather black walnuts (Gramdma made a *killer* black walnut cake...but I digress...)

Bringing them home, we would soak the walnuts to soften the green leathery outer shell, so we could get to the nut underneath (which required a gorilla to open, but I digress again...)

Anyway...we would dump the bucket onto the lawn -- and the earthworms would just about leap out of the ground! I guess the acidity of the water made them uncomfortable, and up they came, ready for the picking.

Now, black walnuts are gathered in the fall, so this is a bit of a seasonal solution (no pun intended)...but maybe you could bottle the stuff and save it for the rest of the year.

Man, I can almost taste that cake...

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this is kinda intense but it'll work find a cheap battery out of a car at a junk yard or somewhere and hook jumpers up to it find some metal rods and stick them in teh ground a good distance apart, oh yeah this is after the rain hook the jumpers up and the worms will come up instantly

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We are the worms .. out on the sidewalks.. we are the ones that make a squashy sound when you step on us. ;D Look around at night after a rain or take a hose out and water your lawn they will pop up or check out under rocks, logs, pine straw, and leaf piles.